


The Dress

by ThatRavenclawBitch



Series: Where is My Mind [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, WiMM/FiTA universe fic, rushacey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 19:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7477074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatRavenclawBitch/pseuds/ThatRavenclawBitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lacey tries on a wedding dress while shopping with Belle. A paraquel to Wedding Belles (this universe has gotten so out of hand).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rowofstars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowofstars/gifts).



“You know,” Belle said thoughtfully, tapping a finger against her chin. “You and I have the same measurements.”

Lacey snorted into her glass of champagne. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed. “I have way bigger tits than you.”

Belle just rolled her eyes. They were currently sitting in The Enchanted Forest, a ridiculously named designer bridal boutique in Boston. Lacey had gorged herself on wedding cake samples and was pleasantly chugging champagne as her sister twirled around in various white gowns that Ariel was plucking for her.

“Seriously,” Belle said, placing her hands on hips swathed in entirely too much blush colored tulle. “We’re the exact same size.”

“Not after all the wedding cake I just ate, we’re not,” Lacey pointed out. She had a feeling she knew where this was going and she didn’t like it. 

“We’re close enough,” Belle argued. “What looks good on you is bound to look good on me.”

Her sister twisted around, trying to get a view of herself from the back with the help of the wall of mirrors.

“Well that would look ridiculous on both of us,” Lacey said, motioning at the poofy princess dress Belle was currently wearing. 

“Yeah,” Belle agreed. “This one’s a no.”

“How about this one, then?” Ariel said, swanning into the changing room with another white monstrosity on her arm. “I think we should go a little more streamlined so the dress doesn’t overwhelm you.”

Belle looked up from the lace concoction to Lacey. “Will you try it on for me?” she asked sweetly. “So I can actually see what it looks like from all angles?”

Lacey huffed, “Not a chance.”

“Please,” Belle asked with pleading eyes. Lacey wasn’t entirely sure how Belle made her eyes look that pitiful. She had the same ones and she’d never been able to pull off that particular look. It’s why Belle had their father wrapped around her finger in a way Lacey could never hope to achieve. “You’re my maid of honor and I need you.”

“Fine,” Lacey said with a roll of her eyes. She slammed down her empty champagne glass on the little glass topped table next to the squishy white armchair she was sitting in and stood up. 

A few pulls and twists and pins later and Lacey was all bound up in a lace covered gown with a mermaid silhouette. 

“Okay, that one makes our butt look amazing,” Belle said as Lacey spun around dutifully for her. “What do you think Ariel?”

As Belle and Ariel deliberated the merits of the dress and how it went with the “theme” of the wedding, whatever that meant, Lacey turned to look at herself in the mirror.

She’d never seen herself as a marriage type of girl. And she figured if she ever did bite that particular bullet, she’d hardly go the traditional white dress route. But she couldn’t deny that the dress was pretty. 

She turned this way and that, admiring her reflection. For a brief moment she imagined what it might be like to be the bride instead of a bridesmaid. Would Nick like this one? She glanced down at the way the fabric clung to her backside.

Yeah, he’d definitely like this one.

“Lacey?” Belle’s voice snapped her out of her reverie. “What do you think?”

“Not this one,” she said decisively. 

She didn’t know if she’d ever have a wedding, but this dress was hers all the same. 

* * *

She’d gone back to the shop three times now.

It was ridiculous really. She wasn’t getting married. The odds of Rush ever proposing were slim to none and she wasn’t even sure she wanted him to in the first place. But there was something about that dress that called to her.

So Lacey continued to pop in to the shop any time she visited Belle in Boston, which was often these days as they tried to plan the wedding. She’d find little excuses to stop by. Once to check on the alterations to Belle’s gown. Another time to look at tiaras on the off chance Belle wanted to look completely ridiculous on her wedding day. The third time she feigned looking at bridesmaid dresses even though hers was already hanging in her closet. And each time she visited the shop, she’d stop by and gaze at the lace gown with the soft sweetheart neckline and the mermaid silhouette.

The weekend of the wedding finally came and Lacey knew there would be little enough reason to ever visit The Enchanted Forest Bridal Boutique again. On the off chance she ever did get married she certainly wouldn’t be able to afford anything from there. So this was to be her last visit, her last look at _her_ dress as she now thought of it.

It felt a bit like a breakup she thought as she walked into the cream interior of the shop, white dresses assailing her from every side. She was saying goodbye to the dress, running a hand over the lace one last time. She would never see it again, but she’d always remember it fondly.

She shuffled to the front corner of the shop where the dress had been on display for all of her previous visits only to come up short. Some taffeta nightmare with so many folds and ruching that it looked like the icing on a wedding cake had taken her dress’s place. The simple silhouette and smooth lines of her dress had been overtaken by the single most hideous wedding dress she’d ever seen.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” the saleswoman said, sliding up behind Lacey and evidently missing her blatant look of disgust. “We just got it in this week. It’s a Lady St. Petsois JuJu.”

“A Lady St. Whatsits Whahoo?” Lacey scoffed. “No, there was another dress here last week. What happened to it?”

The saleswoman just arched an eyebrow at Lacey, clearly unimpressed with her lack of taste. “It’s moved to the clearance rack in the back,” she said coldly, turning to walk away.

Clearance rack? Her beautiful wedding gown was relegated to the bargain bin? Lacey couldn’t believe it.

She scrambled to the back of the store where a few sad dresses hung, bright red tags affixed to them declaring their slashed prices. Her dress looked so lonely sandwiched between a peach colored silk bridesmaid dress that she was pretty sure would flatter no one and a frilled princess dress with far too many rhinestones.

She ran her fingers over the delicate lace, smoothing them down the tiny row of satin covered buttons on the back until she reached the red tag. She glanced down at the price telling herself it was completely ridiculous to even look.

Then she dropped it in shock. It was over 50% off the original price. She looked again as if the number would somehow change. It hadn’t.

Lacey snatched it up, holding her dress close. Her heart was suddenly beating faster as if she’d just run a marathon. She couldn’t believe she was doing this.

The sample size was a little big, but she could do the alterations herself. She had an old Singer in the back of her closet that she used to make her own dresses sometimes. And it’s not as though the alternations needed to be perfect. She wasn’t actually ever going to wear the dress in public. It was just for her. To know that she’d saved this dress from being boxed up and sent off to some bargain basement. Her dress deserved more dignity than that.

She carried the gown up to the front of the store where the snooty saleswoman stood ready to ring her up.

“When’s the wedding?” she asked, with a pointed look at Lacey’s ringless ring finger.

“None of your damn business, that’s when,” Lacey snapped. The woman just scowled at her as she handed her the large white garment bag that now contained her dress.

It was only when she’d made it back to the hotel that Lacey realized she hadn’t really thought this through. Rush had gone to meet an old work colleague for lunch so she had a little bit of time before he came back. But she was sharing a room with her boyfriend, her boyfriend who most decidedly did not want to marry her, and now she had a wedding dress in her possession as if that wasn’t going to drive him completely mental.

How was she supposed to explain that no, this wasn’t a ginormous desperate plea for him to propose and that she just really liked the dress?

Lacey let out a groan, rushing to the closet. She pulled the wedding dress out of its garment bag and stuffed it in to the garment bag already hanging in the closet, behind her bridesmaid dress. She was lucky for the slim silhouette. Her floor length sequined gown for Belle’s wedding covered it nicely. With the black garment back zipped up, Rush would be none the wiser.

She crumpled up the white garment bag and stole out to the hallway where she tossed it into a garbage can attached to a housekeeping cart. No one would ever know that Lacey French had spent the afternoon buying a dress for her wedding to no one.

Or so she thought.

Two weeks later Lacey had almost forgotten about the dress. When they’d gotten home to Storybrooke after the wedding, she’d stashed it in the back of the closet, still zipped up with her bridesmaid dress. She’d caught a glimpse of it when she’d gone to retrieve the bridesmaid dress for cleaning – there were some mysterious stains on it that she didn’t feel the need to inspect too closely – and she’d smiled at her little secret.

She wasn’t as worried about Rush finding it now since their conversation at Belle’s wedding, though it would still be mortifying. He’d said he didn’t _not_ want to marry her and that was good enough for Lacey. They were in no rush to walk down the aisle, but the idea wasn’t off the table completely. What more could she want?

And so she’d gotten careless.

She figured she might as well get around to taking the dress in. With the right heels, she didn’t need to hem it, but the waist and bust were a little baggy, an absolute no-no for a strapless gown.

She was sitting at the kitchen table, humming happily to herself as she worked, earbuds in and pumping loud music as she lost herself in the task. She didn’t realize how much time had passed. She didn’t realize it was 5:00. She didn’t even realize Rush had gotten home from work and was now standing in the kitchen watching her with a slightly open mouth until he coughed loudly.

Lacey jumped, pricking herself with a needle.

“Ouch!” she exclaimed, putting her injured finger in her mouth.

“What are you doing?” Rush asked, looking slightly bewildered.

Lacey glanced around. She had what was unmistakably a wedding dress draped across her lap. There were bits of lace she’d removed scattered around on the floor beside her. There was a sewing machine on the kitchen table along with a tape measure, a pincushion and an assortment of sewing needles and thread. It was fairly evident what she was doing.

“Crafts project?” she said with a shrug.

“Have you taken up alterations as a side job?” he asked, coming to sit at the table with her.

“No,” Lacey said without thinking, then cursed herself. Why couldn’t she just say yes? She could say the dress was for someone else, that she’d offered to help a friend.

Rush smirked, a cross between smug and amused.

“Lacey,” he asked patiently. “Why do you have a wedding dress?”

“Because it’s pretty and I wanted it,” she said, gripping the dress tighter as though he was going to rip it from her hands.

“Is this a hint?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. “I thought you just didn’t not want to marry me, not that you were fishing for a proposal.”

“It’s not a hint!” she exclaimed. “It’s just what I said. Belle had me try it on back when she was looking for a wedding dress and it makes my ass look amazing so I bought it and I’m altering it and it has nothing to do with you. It’s my dress and I wanted it.”

“Fine,” he said, holding his hands up in supplication. “Then you can try it on for me. I love dresses that make your arse look amazing.”

Lacey paused, narrowing her eyes. She felt like this was a trick.

“It’s mine,” she said.

“So you’ve said, multiple times.”

“You don’t need to see it,” she continued.

Rush’s smirk grew. “Because it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her dress before the wedding?”

Lacey cursed under her breath. The bastard, what was he playing at?

“You’re not the groom,” she said with a shrug. “And I’m not a bride. We’re not engaged. It’s just a dress that happens to be white and happens to look great on me.”

Rush nodded. “Then let me see it.”

Lacey stared at Rush. Rush stared at Lacey.

“No,” she said firmly. She wasn’t sure why she wasn’t compromising on this. But this was _her_ dress. And for Rush to see it on her when it wasn’t an actual wedding somehow felt wrong, superstitions be damned.

Rush let out a sigh. “Well, that’s too bad. I’d really like to see you in that dress.”

“Yep,” Lacey agreed. “Too bad.”

“I suppose I’ll never see you in it, seeing as we’re probably never going to get married even though we’re not completely crossing the possibility out.”

“Yep,” she agreed again. “You’ll never see it.”

“Of course,” Rush began with a shrug. “It seems a waste of a perfectly good wedding dress, especially if it does the things for your arse that you’ve said it does.”

Lacey’s heart stuttered to a stop. “What are you saying?”

Rush shrugged again. “Maybe we should get married after all, if only so I can see that dress.”

Lacey dropped the needle she was holding, imagining she could literally hear a pin drop in the silence that followed his words.

“What?” she rasped out.

“Do you want to get married?” he asked, his face suddenly completely serious. “Tonight?”

Lacey looked down at the white lace covering her lap. She was wearing a t-shirt with paint stains on it and nothing else. Her hair was in a messy bun and hadn’t been washed today. She was an absolute fright and Rush had just proposed. Actually proposed. She looked back up at the man across from her, still utterly serious, his brown eyes looking slightly vulnerable. And God she wanted to marry him more than anything.

“Okay,” she breathed.


End file.
